


you escape but keep sinking

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Oh also, Past Lucifer/Sam Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Recovery, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Sam-Centric, Season/Series 08, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, is mentioned a lot, protective older siblings are my shit, super sorry I just fell into the samifer pit, tHAT WAS A TAG IM FUCKIGN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4403111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The use of the scar on his palm escalates to something much worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you escape but keep sinking

**Author's Note:**

> here we have the spn fic that absolutely no one asked for lmao  
> imma be honest guys this summer has been real rough for me so i'm sorry if my style is off or if i don't write as much, but this fic needed to happen  
> sam using pain as a crutch is a head canon i've had ever since I watched season 7, but this was actually really hard to write because i struggle with these issues as well... but it was also helpful in a weird way?? idk.  
> i think it's mostly because i relate to sam on a deep deep level, which is probably not a good thing because boy howdy that kid's a disaster  
> idk i really like sam and i really like dumping my problems onto fictional characters and, i mean. if the shoe fits  
> y'all should talk to me about sam though he's my baby.  
> mostly beta'd. i went over it again when i posted it and jesus christ there were so many mistakes oh my goodness  
> title is inspired by a line in Human by Daughter

It was almost absurd, he thought, that it had gone unnoticed this long. But then again, the two of them were both covered in so many scars that it was difficult to tell them apart. All that red and white blurred together, indecipherable unless you knew what you were looking for.

He thought maybe the urge would go away once the hallucinations stopped. But weeks turned to months, and he still found himself reaching for the cut on his palm, the knives in the trunk of the car, the disposable blades in his cheap plastic razor. It seemed to him that it got worse the longer it dragged on; it was as if the dull, echoing silence in his head was more unbearable than the constant roar of the devil.

That wasn’t to say he missed him.

How ridiculous would that be, to miss the person who treated him with the utmost respect and promised him the entire world? How selfish of him, to need the one person who never once lied, who understood his anger because they were both castaways, mistakes, rebels.

He didn’t like to think about it in too much depth, because then he saw how truly similar they were, and that just made him hate himself all over again. Who else was messed up enough to understand Lucifer?

He needed to break this habit—this habit of loving things that were bad for him.

That wasn’t to say he loved him.

He didn’t like to think about it, do anything to keep himself from thinking about it, to push away the sweet, lilting voice in his head. And yeah, “anything” included having to grab a bottle of bleach to wipe up the mess of blood he’d made on the bathroom floor.

He let himself bleed as he cleaned, which wasn’t his greatest idea, in retrospect. Dark red dripped down his forearm in nauseating lines, collecting at his wrist and smearing across the floor all over again. The dull sting pulsed up all the way to his shoulder, and he hated how much he loved it, how much he reveled in it. This—floating through a plane of void existence, nothing but muted throbbing and the scent of hot copper, the cloudiness in his brain—this was home now. This was where he lived.

The door slammed open, sending him tumbling headfirst back into the reality where he was on his knees in the bathroom, wiping his blood all over the floor with a bleach-soaked rag. The numbness faded and he realized, _fuck_ , he’d been made. So much for keeping it all under wraps. All his hard work had just been blown because he’d been too damn disconnected from everything to lock the door when he came in.

He thought he heard his name, but he couldn’t focus on anything besides the growing fear in his chest and the humiliation bubbling in his stomach. He sat back on his heels, clutching the rag in his hand, and tried not to vomit.

“Jesus Christ, Sammy, what did you do?”

He could barely breathe. The blood and bleach and shame were making his throat close up. He kept his gaze down, even as Dean knelt in front of him and pulled the rag out of his hand.

“There-- there was some broken glass, and—“

Dean’s eyes flickered to the bloody knife next to Sam’s legs. Sam could feel Dean staring into him, confused and hurt. “This better have been the only time. I swear to God, Sam, tell me that this was it, that I caught this before it could get bad.”

He trembled, unable to draw back when Dean took his arm. His fingers ran over the stark white lines that decorated Sam’s skin, like some sort of abstract, modern artwork made up of scar tissue. They tapered out as they got closer to the crook of his elbow, the majority collecting at his wrist. Some of them were still in that stage of red-brown, not completely healed over. Others had begun to fade. Most of them, however, were still very much there—ugly, fat lines that told stories and could be read like braille.

“What were you thinking? What made you want to pull something _this_ stupid--?”

“Stupid. You think this is stupid.” Sam pulled his arm away and picked himself off the floor, pushing past Dean and out of the bathroom. “You know what? _Fuck you_ , Dean.”

He could sit and be scolded for hurting himself, for putting himself in danger, for keeping this a secret from Dean. He could handle that. He’d been going through variations of this his whole life. But it wasn’t stupid, and that response had felt like a punch to the ribcage. Demeaning his method of coping to nothing but a foolish, childish decision was not something he was willing to put up with.

“That’s how you wanna deal with this?” Dean called out behind him. “Just gonna walk away from me?”

Sam clenched his jaw-- whether to prevent screaming or crying or both, he wasn’t sure. His mind was all over the place, and his heart was somewhere between in his collarbones. The rational part of him realized that Dean wasn’t trying to belittle the situation or how truly messed up Sam felt, but the rest of him was too distraught to grasp that. 

“Just tell me why you did it, Sam.”

And then Sam cracked. He pivoted on his heel and faced Dean with anger flickering in his eyes. “Do you really want the whole list? Do you want to hear me talk about how none of this can be blamed on anybody but me? You want me to tell you about all my mistakes, every death that was my fault, every time I screwed up?”

“Sam—“

“No, _listen_ to me. I couldn’t fucking handle it, not after everything that’s happened.” He’d promised himself he’d never tell Dean, never expose this part of himself, but it was spilling out of him all at once and he couldn’t stop it. “Before the apocalypse, Lucifer—he got into my head, he made me feel like he cared. And he _did_. My soul was ripped up in Hell because of the Cage, not Lucifer. He never hurt me, Dean.” Sam’s hands were shaking, and he felt like any moment now, the floor beneath him would come apart and he’d fall into darkness. “And for a while I thought… I don’t know, that I was okay being without him. But then I got my soul back, and everything just started to fall apart.”

“But—what he did to you, he drove you _crazy_ , Sam—“

“It wasn’t him. I did that to myself; I thought I deserved his torture. I wanted him to hate me.” Forcing himself to explain it had him dwelling on memories of it all; plummeting down for miles, the cracked earth that burned his feet, and the air that reacted like poison in his lungs.

The unmistakable feeling of feathers against his skin. The brief pauses from agony, when he was stolen away to moments of blissful quiet. The soft caresses, the comfort, the hushed whispers that soothed him to his bones.

He hated himself for missing that.

“Dean, he only ever loved me. Do you know how—how _ashamed_ that makes me feel? To have found shelter in the devil?”

Dean looked pale, sick to his stomach. “What does that have to do with any of this?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” It took all his power not to start shouting. If he shouted, he’d end up snapping right down the middle, shatter into a million pieces. “It lets me _breathe_. It gives me a few seconds of relief from all of this, from the pressure and the guilt and the shame. Ever since I used that cut on my palm to control my hallucinations, it’s been an alternative to having a psychotic breakdown.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s good for you!” Dean protested. “You make one cut a millimeter too deep and you’re _dead_ , Sam.”

Sam choked out a half-hearted laugh. “I don’t care anymore! What we’re doing, how we’re living, it’s—it all doesn’t even amount to anything. No matter how hard we try, nothing _ever_ goes right for us. We save the world from one thing and something even worse pops up. It’s never going to end, and I know I’m not supposed to let that get the best of me, because we don’t _do_ that, we don’t let things beat us, but I—I’m losing it, Dean. And I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re allowed to be scared,” Dean said. “We’re all scared. You don’t need to hurt yourself over that, you hear me?”

“No, no, you don’t understand.” He was so close to breaking; he could feel the moment rising in his chest. “I can’t get through this like you can, or like Dad could. I’ve never been able to. I need to do this because there is no other way that I can deal with all of the _bullshit_ we have to go through, and because I’m a _mistake_ , and I’m —“ Sam’s voice caught in his throat and he knew that that was it, that was the end, it was all over. His eyes brimmed with tears as he hunched his shoulders forward, hanging his head. “I’m not worth this, I’m not worth anything.”

A mixture of disbelief and dread surfaced in Dean’s expression. “Sammy, that’s not true.” When Sam didn’t look up at him, he took him by the shoulders. “You’re not worthless, you’re not a mistake, alright? Maybe being boyfriends with Satan is a little weird, I’ll give you that, but that doesn’t mean you’re worthless. I promise you that nobody else thinks that. Mom and Dad didn’t think that, and I don’t, either. Christ, I’ve been to _Hell_ for you—“

“You shouldn’t have had to do that,” Sam choked out between tears. “I drag you down, I—“

“No, you don’t.” Dean’s voice was firm, but his hands were gentle as he reached up with his thumbs to wipe some of the wetness off Sam’s cheeks. “And it was my choice. If I had to do it over again, I’d do it the same way, no question about it.”

The wounds on his arms stung in tune with the humiliation burning in his lungs, clouding his thoughts, making it hard to calm down.

“I’m sorry,” he managed. He hadn’t been planning on apologizing, had been entirely opposed to the idea, but now it seemed to be the only thing he was capable of doing. “I’m sorry, Dean, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey, don’t—come on, come here.”

Sam had been taller than Dean for the past decade; but now, wrapped in his brother’s arms like he was being shielded from anything that could ever hurt him, he felt blessedly small. He grabbed at the back of Dean’s shirt, holding on white-knuckled, afraid that this would all fall away if he let go.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he sobbed into Dean’s shoulder. He knew how embarrassed he would be once this fit of panic and crushing sadness blew over, but right now, he needed this. He needed to feel safe. “Please, Dean, please help me…”

“What do you need me to do?” His tone was gentle, having lost any trace of harshness it had had earlier.

“I—I want to die.”

The words were lost amidst another round of tears, but he knew Dean had heard them from the sudden tension in his body. He was silent for a while, holding Sam tight as violent sobs wracked his spine, running his fingers through his hair.

After a minute of quiet, he said, “You know I can’t let that happen.”

+

It took a long time for Sam to settle down. Even when they broke apart, fresh tears were still leaking from the corners of his eyes, and Dean would reach over every few minutes to wipe them away. Dean led Sam to the bathroom, keeping an arm around his shoulders, and sat him down on the lip of the tub.

“I’m gonna patch you up, alright, Sammy?”

Sam could only nod and watch as his brother wet a cloth under the sink and began dabbing at the slices across his arm. It didn’t sting until the soap came in, and Sam had to bite his lower lip to keep from whimpering.

The silence made him feel cold, but Dean’s hands were warm, and he was gentle as he rubbed away the last of the soap. The cuts were still bleeding, oozing lazily, and Dean started tearing bandages with his teeth. Sam recognized that look in his eyes, that internalized rage, and his stomach sank.

“Please don’t be mad at yourself.”

“I should have realized,” he muttered, the gruffness of his tone doing nothing to obscure the fact that he was devastated.

“I was careful, Dean, I hid it from you. You couldn’t have known.”

Dean didn’t reply, instead busying himself with wrapping up Sam’s arm, layer after layer until the blood stopped leaking through.

“Were you doing this when you were with Amelia?”

He’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it feel any better. “No, I wasn’t. But then things started going south, and—I guess I fell off the wagon.”

“You’re saying this is an addiction?”

“I don’t know, Dean. It definitely _feels_ addictive.” He felt a little calmer, now that the shock had faded and he was no longer bleeding everywhere. “It numbs all the shit going on in my head, but it also brings clarity. It helps me to remember that I’m still human, and… you know that mantra, ‘if it bleeds, you can kill it.’ So, I mean—“ 

“You’re reminding yourself you can die,” Dean cut him off, sitting back on his haunches, looking like he was trying very hard not to throw up.

The most painful thing was that Sam couldn’t tell him he was wrong.

“Would you?” Dean asked suddenly. “Would you really do it?”

“… I don’t think so.”

Dean’s shoulders sunk with relief at that. “Sammy, we gotta get you some help.” He met Sam’s eyes, and Sam was struck by the fact that there were tears budding at the corners. “Please, you gotta find some help. I won’t let you die because of this.”

Sam’s heart clenched. “Okay. Okay, I’ll get help, Dean. I promise.”

Dean nodded, and it looked like it was more to reassure himself than Sam. “You know you can talk me, right? I mean, I know my rule about no chick flick moments, but—“

“I know.”

“I just don’t want you hurting yourself anymore—“

“I’ll come to you first.”

“… Good.”

+

The first thing that Sam noticed the next morning was that everything sharp had disappeared. _Everything_. The kitchen block was empty, along with any other kitchen utensil that had been deemed too sharp. All the drawers in the library, all the shelves in the firing range, even the disposable blades on the razors in the bathroom—it was all gone.

Not even bothering to put on shoes, Sam trudged outside to the car and popped open the trunk.

There were no longer any guns or knives strapped to the bottom of the hood. No bloody stakes, no axes, no lighters, no gasoline. It was horrifically bare, save for a gallon container of salt, a few car tire chains for the winter, some windshield washer fluid, and a large steel box with a padlock on it.

Sam shut the trunk and sat on top of it as he tried to wrap his head around what all this meant.

He’d never felt more loved in his whole life.

+

“You did this.”

Dean looked up from his pancakes, which he had been hacking at with a spoon. “Did what?”

“You locked everything away.” He didn’t even try to hide the trembling in his voice. “You put it all in a box in the Impala.”

“Well, not all of it.” Dean took a sip of his coffee. “I had to put some of it in other places. I never really noticed until now, but we have a _lot_ of knives around the house. Took me over three hours to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.”

“But—we need that stuff on the daily to hunt.”

“It’s really not that inconvenient.”

“And the razors?”

“When you need to shave, I’ll get it for you.” Dean spoke like it was obvious, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t just maybe saved his brother’s life. “And then I’ll watch you shave. And then I’ll put it back where you can’t find it.”

Sam was almost speechless. “You’re really gonna do this for me?”

“’Course I am. It’s my job to keep you safe.”

He said it with a burst of pride, like this was what he was meant to do—not serving as an angel’s vessel, not saving the world, not stopping the apocalypse over and over again. No, _this_ was what he was proud of.

And it was that sentiment that had Sam bursting into tears.

“Aw, no, c’mon Sammy, you cried enough yesterday, just—“ Dean was up and out of his seat, taking his little brother in his arms for the second time in twelve hours. “Hey, you’re okay, it’s all okay.”

He mumbled thank you after thank you through sobs into the crook of Dean’s shoulder, and felt some of the weight on his chest lift with each kiss Dean pressed to his head.

+ 

It was two o’clock in the morning and he was breaking again.

Dean needed sleep, he needed to rest, and he shouldn’t have to deal with this in the middle of the night, he kept repeating to himself as he sat there on the edge of his bed, staring into the dark.

He knew if he didn’t go to Dean right now, he’d find a way to do something stupid. It didn’t matter that everything was locked up; he could scratch his skin raw with his fingernails, burn himself with boiling water, string himself up on the ceiling fan with his belt—

The darkness was staring back, his own thoughts were scaring him, and he needed his brother.

His feet were lead weights, and he could barely make himself move. It took all his strength to pull himself down the hall to Dean’s room, and the entire way, his mind was screaming at him. _If you don’t sit down right now, you will vomit. You can’t do this._

“Dean?”

Sam could hardly hear himself, but Dean was awake, throwing the sheets off his body and on his feet within a tenth of a second. “What’s going on, what’s wrong?”

He was weak at the knees, and his heart was thudding painfully from the adrenaline that came with the idea of hurting himself. “I can’t stop thinking, it won’t stop,” he stammered. “I-- I want to do it so bad—“

Dean looked just about as sick as he felt. “Alright, let’s—let’s go sit on the couch for a bit, okay? You’re gonna be okay.”

It was all little more than a blur; he didn’t even know how he got to the couch. The next thing he was distinctly aware of was being wrapped in a blanket and the television turning on, the sound of what could only be _Pulp Fiction_ meeting his ears.

“We can stay here as long as you need,” Dean said, taking a seat next to him and, much to Sam’s surprise, pulling him close. “You’re safe with me.”

Sam closed his eyes and focused on steadying his breathing.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not now, not right now.”

“That’s fine, you don’t have to.”

Sam fell asleep on Dean’s shoulder before the credits ended.

+ 

“Do you still miss him?”

It had been a few weeks. He’d slipped up once or twice. Dean hadn’t been angry, which had only made him hate himself more.

“That’s not why I do it.”

“I know, I know, I just—“

“You want to know if your brother is still in love with the devil.”

“… Well, yeah.”

Sam fidgeted with the sleeves on his sweater. Sometimes it was hard to put on what Dean liked to call “real clothes.” It was exhausting, almost to an embarrassing level.

He hadn’t realized how unwell he was until he saw himself through the expressions on Dean’s face—when he was up until three and sleeping until two, when he didn’t change out of his pajamas, when his appetite was so absent that the process of eating made him sick to his stomach. Dean always looked so hurt, so… scared.

“Sam?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.” He’d also begun to realize how much time he spent in his own head. “I, um, I guess? I mean, I don’t think you ever stop loving someone, at least not completely.” The heater was on the fritz and it was cold in the bunker, so he could pretend that the flush on his cheeks was from that. “I thought you’d be a little more freaked out about all this.”

“I’m not homophobic, Sam. I watch _The_ _L Word_ , okay?”

“That’s not—never mind.”

“Either way, I’m not gonna be mad at you for swinging that way, or both ways--" 

"All ways, actually." 

"What?" 

"It doesn't matter, I'll explain later." 

Dean had that suspicious look on his face, but he let it slide. "Whatever-- you’re my brother, and I’ll always care about you, and all that other sappy shit. Got it?”

“Thanks, Dean.”

Red had begun to creep up his brother’s neck. “I’m done talking about this now.”

“Okay.”

Sam hid a smile behind his hand and watched his brother stomp off to the kitchen.

+ 

“'He was in his chair in the corner, resting a second before he came out for the next round -- in a long line of next rounds.'”

Sam wasn’t shaking anymore, but there were still tears dripping off his nose, down his chin. Neither of them were sure if it was because he was truly sad, or if there was just nothing else for his body to do, like it had all reached a peak and the only way to release some of the tension was through crying.

Sam sniffed quietly. Dean held him tighter.

“'The thing he was fighting, you couldn't whip it for good. All you could do was keep on whipping it, till you couldn't come out anymore and somebody else had to take your place.’" Dean closed the book, making sure to keep one of his fingers on the page to save his spot. “Sammy, why do you want me to read this to you?”

His little brother, easily over six feet, broad and strong, was curled up against his side like a child. His head rested against Dean’s chest, wisps of long brown hair falling across his cheek, and he looked so small in these moments, so fragile.

“It’s therapeutic.”

“You’ve got a weird definition for ‘therapeutic.’”

“Says the recovering alcoholic.”

“Hey, don’t throw shade at me,” Dean snapped with false annoyance. “I don’t care if your head’s all scrambled right now; I’ll still kick your ass.”

Sam’s shoulders trembled with silent laughter, and his body loosened slightly in under Dean’s arm. A soft sigh left his lungs, rattling his ribcage, and he shifted closer to Dean.

Dean’s brow furrowed. Everything Sam did nowadays made him feel scared. He couldn’t protect him from this; he couldn’t kill whatever this was. He could hide anything dangerous, hold him until the urge to slice himself to ribbons wore off, wipe away his tears, and try his hardest to understand. But that was all. After that, he could only watch his brother fight this on his own. “You doing alright, Sammy?”

“Yeah.” There was a long pause where they were both waiting—whether it was to listen or to find the words, searching through them all, an endless heap of Scrabble pieces. Finally, with a bit more confidence than the first time, Sam said, “Yeah, I’m alright-- I’m gonna be alright.”

“You’re damn right, you are.” Dean kissed the crown of Sam’s head and flipped back to their current page. “'There was more going on in the Nurse’s Station and a number of authorities showing up for a tour of the evidence…'”

**Author's Note:**

> The book Dean is reading to Sam is _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ by Ken Kesey.
> 
> I also want to add two small things, because this fic covers some serious issues and I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea: 
> 
> a) I absolutely do NOT condone Sam's behavior. This fic was meant to shed light on Sam's mental health, depression in general, and, obviously, how it feels to self-harm and how it feels to try and recover. It is NOT meant to encourage self-injury or romanticize this mental illness. Hopefully I did a solid job on conveying it as a messy, difficult thing to go through, but just in case: it's messy and difficult and you don't want this. You really don't. I promise. 
> 
> b) While this was meant to help me sort through my own shit, and also to put depression and the recovery process into words to help people understand, and _also_ to create something other people would enjoy, this is NOT by any means a comprehensive work. Everyone's experiences with depression and self-harm are different.


End file.
